


Enough to Follow

by WishStone



Series: For Now, It's Enough [2]
Category: Persona 4
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Detective Prince, Investigations, Mind Games, No Smut, kannao - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 02:44:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6177079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WishStone/pseuds/WishStone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having obtained the case files of the incidents in Nahiro, Naoto first believes that this will only be a matter of closing a few holes in the net the police cast to catch the perpetrator. When it becomes clear that the team of investigators is inexperienced with the task of tracking down a sexual predator, Naoto decides to head out to take control of the situation - leaving a very worried Kanji behind in Inaba.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enough to Follow

Marking different pages of a thick folder with her left hand, Naoto used the pen in her right to absent-mindlessly push her cap up. She had that intense look on her face. Not a frown, really, just that her eyes simply shone intently on the papers before her. He couldn't _really_ see it right now, but he knew he could imagine what it looked like if he tried. And because he liked to watch her and had seen that look a lot, well, he didn't need to try very hard.

Kanji stood a few meters away, leaning against one of the shelves in the school library, quietly watching her. It had been about a week since he had pulled her out of the rain and worked with her that evening on the fax she send out to the police or prefecture or something back in... Ni... Neri... Nahiro, that's the name! He had to look up where that place was, it was friggin' tiny. Like, Inaba-sized small.

Only two days later she had waved him to her desk at lunch and she showed him a rather large currier-delivered folder. Her arguments apparently had held up and the chief of police himself had send a letter, thanking her for her interest and requested of her, very humbly, to please review the work of his staff. The bright shine in her eyes was worth the tiny cold he had been fighting off after getting soaked for her. And more, if he was totally honest. Her pride had been restored with the delivery of that folder. Her confidence in her work was back and he knew that whatever would come, she was on top of her game now.

Early this morning she came to school with the same thick paper envelope under her arm and she had spent every free minute opening it, placing sticky notes and muttering to herself. She no longer seemed overly pleased with the content of the folder, or indeed the folder itself. It had been on her desk all day, and now she had dragged it up here, hiding between their fellow students as she was browsing back and forth through the collected information.

Watching her like this was its own thrill. He loved watching her anyways, but when she was so determined and in her element, he could not help but stare. It was one of the first things he had noticed about Naoto Shirogane, long before he knew about _her_ – it was the drive. The passion for the work set before her. It was also something he was slightly envious of, truth be told. The only times he could focus like that, was when he was working on something with yarn or cloth. If he had only half her drive when it came to reading things, he'd not be so far behind on his class work.

He shifted and his shoulder jostled something. A thick atlas crashed to the ground with a heavy **thump** and everyone – her included – jumped, turning to look around.

Kanji stood frozen, Naoto's raised eyebrow-gaze on him. A deer in headlights had smoother reaction times. After several hasty blinks, he scrambled to his knee. "Sorry! _Sorrysorrysorry_ …" he whispered, scurrying to pick up the thick volume and placing it back on the shelf. _Who the heck had_ leaned _it there? It should be sideways to avoid falling out…_ He fussed over the book, checking the other books on the shelf, trying his best to pretend he had actually been looking for something. He ended up picking out a book on 'The Geo-Political History of Japan and other Sovereign Nations of the North Pacific (1922-1945) Vol. 2' Whatever _that_ meant.

When he turned back around again, Naoto still watched him. Her brow slowly sunk and her eyes lit up with the smallest of smiles. She lifted her hand and beckoned him closer.

Kanji stiffened, swallowed and slowly walked up to her, seeing her pull out the chair next to her, patting it. It was not unheard of for the two of them to spend time in the school library. He was not exactly a top student and Naoto had told him at the end of their first school year that she would not allow him to fail high school. And if nothing else, he wanted to make sure her effort wasn't a waste of time, so his grades did steadily improve. And while some folks were bound to know of his crush on her, well, about half of the school had a crush on her, so why worry?

Now, he slipped into the chair beside her, unsure what he would actually be doing here today. As he sat, she had already turned back to her file and the small frown re-appeared.

He settled down, watching her for a while. Realizing she was already sucked back into her work, the blonde opened his book bag and pulled out his English homework. It needed to be done and he might as well do it right now. It was that or know he would 'conveniently forget' again. While English wasn't his favourite subject, he had set a goal for himself - he wanted to be able to read the books Naoto read. He wanted to understand what she enjoyed better, and a lot of what she read was in English and French. The latter he had given up on fully, too many weird rules, but English he was trying hard to stick to.

He actually made decent process. Since that afternoon a few days ago, when they had held hands, if only briefly, he felt more relaxed around her. Something had happened, something good, and he no longer felt like his every move way being scrutinized or evaluated by her. They had been comfortable, and silences no longer bothered him. If anything, he would fill every silence with the image of her fingers slowly linking with his. It meant nothing, and it had not repeated itself since, but she knew he cared, damnit, and what more did he really need right now?

"Thank you again, Kanji-kun," she said softly. Had she touched him, he'd not have made a smaller jump.

His head snapped around to look at her. She still was working on her folder it seemed. For a moment he wasn't even sure he had heard her correctly. "Th- thanks? F-For what?"

She smiled softly, turning to look at him. "It is thanks to your support and encouragement I was finally granted access to these case files. Standing my ground, showing my strengths – all of this mattered so much more than anything my Grampa could have done for me. And without you, I could not have gotten this far. You picked me up when I needed it and gave me the encouragement I lacked from others."

Kanji scratched an imaginary itch with the back of his pen. "Ah, ya know… 's nothin', Naoto. Ya weren't doing too hot, all ya needed was some help, right? Everyone does sometimes." He felt a blush come on and turned to look at his homework. "I think I'll need some help myself…"

Naoto laughed softly, checked the pages she had marked with her fingers all had a sticky notes and closed her folder. "Let me have a look." She stood, leaning over his shoulder. "May I?" She tugged his pen out of a hand offering no resistance and underlined something in his exercise book. "You missed the tense change here. What you needed for this segment is to observe the narrator changed from the present tense to the future tense, here."

Focusing on her help was hard, when his eyes kept sliding sideways to observe her, or watching her hand more than what she wrote, but she took the time to help him, so Kanji forced himself to at least try to pick up on what she was explaining.

* * *

 

The next day found her sitting at her desk at lunch, the elbows of her crossed arms leaning on the hard surface. Her lips were a thin, pursed line. As Kanji tried to walk in, Rise grabbed his arm and redirected him. "Are you positive you want to go in there, Kanji?"

"Huh? Yeah? Why?" He looked at the idol, then glanced towards the cracked-open door.

"She's snapped at everyone who's tried to talk to her so far. Thought I'd give you a fair warning. I closed the door on purpose after the fourth person but sprinted out." The idol turned and looked through insight. "Mind, if anyone, I think you'd be the most likely to get out of there unharmed, Kanji-kun. She's been in a _mood_ all morning."

The blonde frowned at his popstar friend, then back at the door. "Did she say anything?"

"No But she's been playing with her phone all day. Usually she turns it off for class. I know, because she will give one of her famous speeches to anyone 'foolishly distracting themselves'." She dropped her voice to a fake, low pitch, nothing at all like Naoto's, Kanji thought.

His eyes were firmly on his crush. If Naoto wasn't doing well, damnit, he simply would need to go to her and tough it out, right? She had shown him that she needed a bit of help at times and it seemed he had the right mix of whatever she needed to make things work. If she was in this mood, she needed him. Or, well, he'd like to think she did.

"Yeah. Well, thanks. I'll see what's up."

Kanji slid the door open quietly and closed it just as quietly. Still, in an empty, silent classroom, Naoto must have heard. She stiffened. "As I indicated previously, I would appreciate some quiet."

He didn't say anything, simply pulling out a chair from the desk behind her, placing it into the path between the tables and sitting down behind her to her right.

This silence was not comfortable, but he used his newly formed habit of letting her build up and vent before he would say anything. It seemed to work out better when he let her direct their talks.

Slapping a hand on the table, she turned, eyes blazing. "It was-!" The sentence froze in her throat, and her furious expression snapped into surprise when she saw him. Kanji leaned back in the chair, his butt forward as much as he could, his shoulders barely touching the back rest, the ankle of one foot on his knee, casually holding his legs crossed.

She stopped, her angry frown turning into puzzlement. "Kanji-kun? Did you need anything?"

He pursed his lips as if thinking on that question, shook his head and shifted in his chair, making clear he was comfortable right where he was, not planning on leaving either.

"Then maybe you would like to go and find better company for your break. I am not… Not such at this time. "

Rolling his eyes to gaze at the ceiling, he simply said, "Na, I'm good here."

With a frustrated grunt, Naoto turned her back on him.

Kanji turned his gaze to her, watching the stiff pose she had as she sat before him. Oh, she was _angry_ all right. Rise may have been saving people's lives out there. He saw the folder on her desk, one of her fists each planted at either side of it. He needed no Sherlock Holmes to find out what bothered her. It was something in front of her, something in that folder. Now he only needed to wait for her to tell him how he could help.

He lifted his head slowly and looked at the ceiling, waiting for her to explain what the problem is. They stayed in the relative silence of the empty classroom for what felt like only a couple of minutes, before she spun around again.

"Why are you here?"

Kanji let his chin sink back to his chest, looking at her. "Yer runnin' from somethin'. 's either that, or yer got some bad news. Either way, there's trouble an' I'll not let ya be alone with it."

"You realize I do not need a continuous chaperone."

He gave her a slightly puzzled look and replied, "Not sure what a cornerstone has to do with anything…"

He swore a smile flashed over her face before it was replaced with another sour look. "I do not need a minder, I mean."

"Ah, that. Well." He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. "Sorry, ain't got none of those on me. But I got somethin' better."

She simply cocked an eyebrow, scowling.

"Got a friend for ya right here." He anger slowly melted at these words and she let her gaze sink to the floor. "What's up, Naoto?"

Naoto's anger seemed to freeze at these simple words and she slowly turned her head away from Kanji. She regarded the cracked linoleum floor for a while, before lifting her head. She finally half-turned, picked up the folder from behind and turned back to hand it to Kanji. As he took is she sighed softly and leaned her right on the backrest of her chair. "First page."

He opened the folder hesitantly. Did she think he would actually be able to understand anything?

The first page was a neatly written list of bullet points. He started to slowly read his way through them.

> * List of previous related crimes, local - missing. Was it not gathered?
> 
> * List of previous related crimes, prefecture - missing. Same questions as prev. point
> 
> * List of previous offenders in related crimes, local - missing. If none, note as such
> 
> * List of previous offenders in related crimes, prefecture - missing. Where is the cross-referencing?
> 
> * Chronological map of related crimes - missing. If there is one, I need an image
> 
> * Previous convictions in the prefecture related to case - missing. Is this the first such case in the history of Nahiro?
> 
> * Status of rape kits - missing. Were they taken? Were they processed? Where is the follow-up?

"Naoto? What is a… a rape kit?"

"It… it is a colloquial term for a sexual assault evidence collection kit. It is a… a method of gathering evidence after attempted or executed sexual assault," Naoto replied. Something about her answer told him she kept it to the point for him and he decided he did not need to know more.

"Mhm… eer, Naoto… what's all of this?"

"That," she said, crossing her left arm with her right over the backrest of her chair and sinking her head lower onto her arms, "is the bare basics I'd need to even begin getting any kind of organised search arranged. I asked them to send me full file on the case, but it seems they either omitted the essentials, or…"

Kanji closed the folder and watched his friend. Gears were in definitive motion, so he quietly waited for her to continue. He looked down at the folder in his hands. It was surprisingly heavy. A lot of stuff must have been in there already, but Naoto knew precisely what she needed to work on a case and she would not rest if she could not get every detail.

Naoto suddenly sat up straight. "Gods, could it be?"

"Mhm?" He struggled to keep up with her, but damned if he wouldn't try. "Whassa matter? Ya thought 'a something?"

She blinked repeatedly, staring into nothingness. "Could it be they do not understand about the Escalation of Sexual Predators or that milder crimes could in fact be related? It's really basic stuff, but if they have not even added these steps into their main file yet, they might have forgotten about it and not even considered this yet." She took the folder from him, flipped it open… frowned and turned it right-side up. "If they did not consider this, I am not surprised they ran into a dead end. They simply… hm…"

She turned back to her desk, picked up a marker pen and started to gaze through the pages one by one.

Kanji waited a bit, then smiled, put the chair back and was nearly out of the door when she called out "Kanji-kun?"

He turned, looking over his shoulder. "Mhm?"

She was half turned towards him, one arm hanging over the back of her chair. "I'm sorry to have been poor company. Thank you for your assistance. Really. I appreciate you being there for me."

He simply smiled. "Yeah, anytime, man."

* * *

 

Later that night found Kanji was sprawled on his futon, browsing a pattern book for ideas. He was bored and feeling uncreative and while generally working with yarn made his mind set sail and work out stuff that got scrunched up inside of him, tonight he simply couldn't find the right place to start. Maybe he was also just tired, but tomorrow was Sunday and he'd be damned if he didn't stay up late the one day in the week he could.

His phone, set to silent, hummed on his nightstand as a text message came in. He reached for it with his left hand, not taking his eyes away from the patterns. Possibly Hanamura, seeing how late it was. Got yelled at by Chie-senpai and now came crying to him abou-

New SMS - Shirogane Naoto

Kanji tossed the magazine aside and flipped his phone open.

**2 L8 2 TLK?**

He blinked at the message a few times before his inner Naoto-translator changed gears from hyper-formal and complicated to _leet_ - _speak_. _'Is it too late to chat?'_

**Na. What's up?**

Her reply came in from of a call moments later.

"Kanji-kun? Is it really not too late for you?"

"Hey... no, yer fine." He leaned back on one arm and waited for her to speak up. He actually waited quite a while. "Naoto?"

"Apologies... I am... I did not expect you to... I did not think you would let me call you at one in the morning."

"Heh. Ya did ask and I said yer cool ta call."

"Yes. Indeed. I just had not yet sorted out what I wanted to say."

"Then sort it out now? I don't mind waiting. We... we're friends after all." He swallowed hard at that.

_It's one in the morning and I am on the phone with my crush of over a year. She is speechless and gods, it's fucking cute. I don't even mind that she just went all quiet on me again. I can hear her breathe. ...that is not something I should think too hard about, damnit!_

But knowing one should do or not do something and actually doing it, well, those two are often not the same. Kanji let himself slowly lay down on his futon, his arm now behind his head, waiting for Naoto to speak up. When he heard her begin to speak, he had started to drift off, her breathing and started-stopped-started-stopped sentences soothing him.

"I've been going over the files that were send to me by Nahiro. There is so much missing I thought at first they were wilfully withholding evidence from me. I called the chief earlier today. I no longer believe there is maliciousness or indeed incompetence at work. I underestimated how much Nahiro and Inaba really are alike. They are underequipped and underprepared to deal with the potential crisis at hand. I thought Dojima-san was set in his ways, but at least he understood the seriousness of the situation. These officers..."

Her voice trailed off, and Kanji thought he could actually picture her slowly pinning the corner of one lip between her teeth, slowly nibbling on it. Right now, her eyes would get that far-away look, her brows would lower ever so slightly, just barely hinting at a frown. After a while, she would actually frown, releasing that nibbled lip and gently place the second knuckle of her right index finger into her mouth to gently bite-!

He sat up with a start, swallowing a swear. This was not the time to start dreaming of her, damnit. She needed his help. _Focus, Tatsumi!_ "These officers-?" he gently prompted instead.

"I... Dear gods, I do not mean to sound high and mighty, but they seem to not know what they are doing. They have done the basics, and it feels as if someone followed a manual. But they have not worked on the broader scale of things. When I am called in to investigate any kind of sexual assault, the core work generally is done for me. All the groundwork for such a case is simply there. And here... it is not."

Kanji scratched the beginning stubble on his chin, shaving before going outside tomorrow was absolutely needed. "Ah, so... Like, that list you wrote?"

"Precisely." He could hear her sigh softly and heard her move. Settling in on her couch? "At this point, I don't even know what kind of suspect I'm aiming for. A local, known predator? Someone passing through? Someone who travels to different locations? Someone who simply had the chance and took it? Each of these would need me to approach the situation differently and neither of these can be even excluded at this time. I feel as if I would need to start from the bottom up with this. What I thought only a week ago would be a matter of reading a few files, consult a map and give pointers is swiftly growing into a complex enough case that I consider taking some time away from school..."

He closed his eyes and sighed a slow, deep sigh. That kind of had been his worry. She would do that at times, of course, her work, or, well, the work of the Shirogane family, really, called for it frequently. Often she was simply gone for a weekend and came back having barely missed a day or two. But other times, like right after they had cleared the fog, she would be gone for three weeks.

He hated that time without her.

Aside from his raging crush, he felt like she was a daily reset button for him. The longer she was gone, the more trouble he ended up getting into, even if Rise or Naoki tried real hard to keep him on a short leash - generally his temper ended up being shorter. Not only that, but Rise's teasing generally was worse when Naoto was gone... or it felt like it was.

But, this was who she was. An ace in her field. People needed her. Right now, women who did not even know she existed depended on her. And the sooner she could help them, the better it would be for everyone involved.

"Yer leavin' soon?" His voiced sounded hollow, even to himself.

"I believe it would be best if I travel Monday in the afternoon, after school." There was a pause. "Kanji-kun, I was wondering... That is, I know it's impertinent, but..." She stopped and restarted after a small sigh. "I was hoping if I might enlist your help."

"Anythin', ya know that."

"Could I stop by your home in the morning of the trip and store my traveling needs? It would be more efficient if I leave from your home over going back all the way to my apartment and I would rather not carry my-"

"Course ya can. Silly ya feel ya need ta ask permission, Naoto. Ya jus'... You know, just ring me up when ya get here. If yer early, Ma would love to have ya for breakfast." He wasn't sure she would, but he knew she would not turn any friend of her son's down. And if she was going to be gone for a while, _he_ would love to have her stay for breakfast.

"That would be most convenient, Kanji-kun. Thank you. When should I be there?"

"We eat at around six-thirty?"

"Very well. I will be there at that time then. Thank you again. And thank your mother as well, please."

"S-Sure. Well. We better get to sleeping then, eh?"

"Yes. Goodnight, Kanji-kun."

"'night."

He flipped the phone shut and gazed up at the ceiling. Usually when she up and left for a few days or so, he only found out after the fact. When she didn't turn up at school, or when Rise mentioned something. And usually he didn't know why she was gone.

Naoto going out to track down criminals was what she was born to do, just about literally. But… something didn't sit right with Kanji. Knowing she was out to track down a rapist was something that conjured up very grim images. All he could trust was her skill and knowing that she would not do anything foolish. _I mean… 's Naoto. She… she knows her stuff. She'll be awesome no matter what, right?_

Still. She was also the one who had provoked a possible serial killer to abduct her a bit over a year ago…

Kanji spend the rest of the night lying in bed with all kinds of situations in his head he would hope to never experience – and hope she would not, either.

**Author's Note:**

> Ikasury, while being awesome, isn't superwoman and isn't feeling well right now, SO, this is being posted without her careful review. It'll be edited and fixed once she gets around to it. (Thank you, Ika, and, please, don't stress yourself over this, really!)
> 
> As I posted on my dA blog, work is starting to claim more of my brain power, so I will not be able to promise a weekly update to the story, however, I do aim for longer chapters for ETF and hope for a monthly publish. If it turns out to become 6 weeks, really sorry, I am not yet sure how work will progress from here on. Fingers crossed it'll be a month for the next ETF and that I can keep DF on a bi-monthly schedule.
> 
> Thanks guys!


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